The Three Brides

by Шарлотта Мэри Йондж

  "I see," said Julius, gravely and pitifully, "it would take a man of more age and weight than poor Frank to deal with the habits of a lifetime. The risk is great."

  "And when I saw it," added Eleonora, "I felt I must never, never bring him into it. And how could I tell him? Your mother does not know, or she could not wish it!"

  "It is plain that in the present state of things you ought not to marry, and so far you are judging nobly," said Julius; "but next comes the question-how far it is well to make that day at the races the pretext?"

  "Don't call it a pretext," said Lenore, quickly. "I meant what I said a year ago, with all my soul. Perhaps it was hasty, when poor Camilla drove me into saying I did not mean only an habitual gambler, but one who had ever betted. And now, well as I know how cruelly she used that presumptuous vow of mine, and how she repented of it at last, still I feel that to fly in its face might be so wrong, that I should have no right to expect not to drag Frank down."

  "Perhaps I am too much interested to judge fairly," said Julius. "I should like you to consult some one-say Dr. Easterby-but it seems to me that it is just such a vow as you may well be absolved from."

  "But is it not Frank's protection?"

  "Put yourself in that poor fellow's place, Lena, and see what it is to him to be cast off for such a reason. He did the wrong, I know. He knew he ought not, apart from your resolution, and he did thus prove his weakness and unfitness-"

  "Oh no, no-it was not his fault."

  Julius laughed a little, and added, "I am not saying he deserves you-hush!-or that it would be well to take him now, only that I think to find himself utterly rejected for so insufficient a reason, and when he was really deceived, would not only half kill him now, but do his whole nature cruel harm."

  "What is to be done then?" sighed Eleonora.

  "I should say, and I think my mother would put him on some probation if you like, even before you call it an engagement; but give him hope. Let him know that your attachment is as true and unselfish as ever, and do not let him brood in misery, enhanced by his deafness."

  "I can't marry while poor papa is like what he is," said she, as if trying to keep hold of her purpose.

  "But you can be Frank's light and hope-the prize for which he can work."

  "If-your mother will have it so-then," said Eleonora, and the sigh that followed was one to relieve, not exhaust.

  "May I tell her then?"

  "You must, I suppose," said the poor girl; "but she can never wish it to go on!"

  Julius left her at her own door and went home.

  As Mrs. Poynsett said, she could expect nothing better of him. "It is quite clear," she said, "that poor Lena is right, that Frank must not set up housekeeping with him. Even if he were certain to be proof against temptation, it would be as bad a connection as could be. I never thought of his being with them; but I suppose there is nothing else to be done with him."

  "Frank ought not to be exposed to the trial. The old man has a certain influence over him."

  "Though I should have thought such a hoary old wreck was nothing but a warning. It has been a most unhappy affair from first to last; but Lena is a good, unselfish girl, and nothing else will give Frank a chance of happiness. Waiting will do them no harm, they are young enough, and have no great sum to marry upon, so if you can bring her to me to-morrow, Julius, I will ask her to grant my poor boy leave to wait till she can see her way to marrying."

  Julius ventured to write down, 'Hope on!'

  To this Frank replied with rather a fiery look, "Mind, I will not have her persuaded or worked on. It must be all her own doing. Yes," answering a look of his brother, "I see what you are about. You want to tell her it is a superstition about her vow and not using me fairly. So it may be in some points of view; but the fact remains. She thought she might trust to my good sense and principle, and it proved that she was wrong. After that it is not right to force myself on her. I don't dare to do it, Julius. I have not been shut up with myself all these weeks for nothing. I know now how unworthy I ever was to think of her as mine. If I can ever prove my repentance she might in time forgive me; but for her to be driven to take me out of either supposed justice or mercy, I will not stand! A wretched deaf being like me! It is not fitting, and I will not have it done!"

  Julius wrote-"She is suffering greatly. She nearly fainted at church, and I had to take her out."

  Frank's face worked, and he put his hand over it as he said, "You are all torturing her; I shall write a letter and settle it myself."

  Frank did write the letter that very night, and when Julius next saw Eleonora her eyes were swollen with weeping, and she said-

  "Take me to him! I must comfort him!"

  "You have heard from him?"

  "Yes. Such a beautiful letter. But he must not think it that."

  She did show the letter, reserved though she was. She was right about it; Julius was struck with the humble sweetness, which made him think more highly of poor Frank than ever he had done before. He had decided against himself, feeling how much his fall at the race-ground had been the effect of the manner in which he had allowed himself to be led during the previous season in London, and owning how far his whole aim in life fell short of what it ought to be, asking nothing for himself, not even hope nor patience, though he could not refrain from expressing his own undying love, and his one desire that if she had not attached herself to one more worthy, he might in time be thought to have proved his repentance. In the meantime she would and could be only his beacon star.

  Julius could not but take her home, and leave her with Frank, though his mother was a little annoyed not to have first seen her; but when Frank himself brought her to Mrs. Poynsett's arms, it turned out that the two ladies were quite of one mind as to the inexpediency of Sir Harry living with Frank. They said it very covertly, but each understood the other, and Eleonora went home wonderfully happier, and looking as if her fresh beauty would soon return.

  There was quite enough to dazzle Miles, whose first opinion was that they were hard on Sir Harry, and that two ladies and a clergyman might be making a great deal too much of an old man's form of loitering, especially in a female paradise of ritualism, as he was pleased to call Rockpier, where all the male population seemed to be invalids.

  However, it was not long before he came round to their view. He found that Sir Harry, in spite of his gentlemanly speech and bearing, was a battered old roue, who was never happy but when gambling, and whose air and title were baits to victims of a lower class than himself; young clerks and medical students who were flattered by his condescension. He did not actually fleece them himself, he had too little worldly wisdom for that; but he was the decoy of a coterie of Nyms, Pistols, and Bardolphs, who gathered up the spoil of these and any unwary youth who came to Rockpier in the wake of an invalid, or to 'see life' at a fashionable watering- place. Miles thought the old man was probably reduced to a worse style of company by the very fact of the religious atmosphere of the place, where he himself found so little to do that he longed for the opening of the Session; but he was strongly impressed with the impracticability of a menage for Frank, with the baronet as father- in-law.

  Not so, Sir Harry. He was rather fond of Frank, and had been glad to be no longer bound to oppose the match, and he had benignantly made up his mind to the great sacrifice of living in his house in London, surrounding himself with all his friends, and making the young couple supply him with pocket-money whenever he had a run of ill-luck. They would grant it more easily than Camilla, and would never presume to keep him under regulation as she had done. They would be too grateful to him.

  So, after a day or two, he demanded of Eleonora whether her young man had given her up, or what he meant by his coolness in not calling? Lena answered the last count by explaining how unwell he had been, and how his hearing might be lost by a renewal of his cold. She was however further pressed, and obliged to say how matters stood, namely, that they were engaged, but meant to wait.

&
nbsp; Whereupon, Sir Harry, quite sincerely, poor old man, grew compassionate and grandly benignant. The young people were prudent, but he would come to their aid. His pittance added to theirs-even now would set all things straight. He would never stand in the way of their happiness!

  Mrs. Poynsett had bidden Lena cast the whole on her shoulders. The girl was too truthful and generous to do this, fond as she still was of her father.

  "No, dear papa," she said, "it is very kind in you," for she knew that so he meant it, "but I am afraid it will not quite do. You see Frank must be very careful in his situation-and I don't think so quiet a way of life would suit you."

  "Nonsense, child; I'm an old man, and I want no racketing. Just house-room for myself and Victor. That fellow is worth two women in a house. You'll keep a good cook. I'll never ask for more than a few old friends to dinner, when I don't feel disposed to have them at the club."

  Old friends! Yes, Lenore knew them, and her flesh crept to think of Frank's chief hearing of them constantly at his house.

  "I don't think we should afford it, dear papa," she said. "We have agreed that I had better stay with you for the present, and let Frank make his way."

  Then a thought occurred to Sir Harry. "Is this the Poynsetts' doing?"

  "No," said Eleonora, stoutly. "It is mine. I know that-oh! papa, forgive me!-the things and people you like would not be good for Frank, and I will not leave you nor bring him into them. Never!"

  Sir Harry swore-almost for the first time before her-that this was that old hag Mrs. Poynsett's doing, and that she would make his child abandon him in his old age. He would not have his daughter dragged into a long engagement. Wait-he knew what waiting meant- wait for his death; but they should have her now or not at all; and he flung away from her and her entreaties to announce his determination to the suitor's family.

  He did not find this very easy to accomplish. Frank's ears were quite impervious to all his storming, and if he was to reduce his words to paper, they came less easily. Miles, to whom he tried to speak as a man of the world, would only repeat that his mother would never consent to the marriage, unless the young couple were to live alone; nay, he said, with a grain of justice, he thought that had been Sir Harry's own view in a former case. Would he like to see Mrs. Poynsett? she is quite ready.

  Again Sir Harry quailed at the notion of encountering Mrs. Poynsett; but Miles, who had a great idea that his mother could deal with everybody, and was the better for doing so, would not let him off, and ushered him in, then stood behind her chair, and thoroughly enjoyed the grand and yet courteous way in which she reduced to nothing Sir Harry's grand beneficence in eking out the young folks' income with his own. She knew very well that even when the estate was sold, at the highest estimate, Eleonora would have the barest maintenance, and that he could hardly expect what the creditors now allowed him, and she made him understand that she knew this, and that she had a right to make conditions, since Frank, like her other sons, could not enter into possession of his share of his father's fortune unless he married with her consent.

  And when he spoke of breaking off the engagement, she was callous, and said that he must do as he pleased, though after young people were grown up, she thought the matter ought to rest with themselves. She did not wish her son to marry till his character was more confirmed.

  He went home very angry, and yet crest-fallen, sought out Eleonora, and informed her of his command, that her engagement should be broken off.

  "I do not know how that can be done, papa," said Eleonora. "We have never exactly made an engagement; we do not want to marry at once, and we could not help loving each other if we tried."

  "Humph! And if I laid my commands on you never to marry into that family?"

  "I do not think you will do that, papa, after your promise to Camilla."

  She had conquered. No further objection was made to her being as much as she pleased with the Charnocks as long as they remained at Rockpier, nor to her correspondence with Frank when he went away, not to solitary lodgings as before, but to the London house, which Miles and Anne only consented to keep on upon condition of their mother sharing it with them.

  CHAPTER XXXVII. The Third Autumn

  A good man ther was of religion, That was a poure Persone of a toune; But rich he was of holy thought and work, He also was a learned man a clerk.-CHAUCER

  Autumn came round again, and brought with it a very different September from the last.

  Willansborough was in a state of commotion. That new Vicar had not only filled the place with curates, multiplied services in the iron church, and carried on the building of St. Nicholas in a style of beauty that was quite affronting to those who were never asked to contribute to it, but he gave people no peace in their easy conventional sins, pricked them in their hearts with personal individual stings, and, worse than all, protested against the races, as conducted at Wil'sbro'.

  And their Member was just as bad! Captain Charnock Poynsett, instead of subscribing, as part of his duty to his constituents, had replied by sending his brother Raymond's half-finished letter to the club, with an equally strong and resolute one of his own, and had published both in all the local papers.

  Great was the fury and indignation of Wil'sbro', Backsworth, and all the squires around. Of course it was a delirious fancy of poor Raymond Poynsett, and Miles had been worked upon by his puritanical wife and ritualistic brother to publish it. Newspapers teemed with abuse of superstition and pharisaism, and praise of this wholesome, moral, and 'truly English' sport. Gentlemen, and ladies too, took the remonstrance as a personal offence, and threatened to visit no more at Compton; the electors bade him look to his seat, and held meetings to invite 'Mr. Simmonds Proudfoot,' as he now called himself, to represent them; and the last week, before the races, the roughs mobbed him in Water Lane. He rode quietly through them, with his sailor face set as if against a storm, but when he was out of the place, he stopped his horse at Herbert Bowater's lodgings, that his black eye might be washed, and the streams of rotten egg removed from his coat before he presented himself at home. Not that he had much fear of startling his wife and mother. It was more from the Englishman's hatred of showing himself a hero, for Anne was perfectly happy in the persecution he had brought on himself, for she never had been so sure before that he was not of the world, worldly.

  The races were exceptionally brilliant, and fully attended, but the triumph of the roughs had made them more outrageously disgraceful in their conduct than ever; and when Miles went to the quarter- sessions, rather doubting whether he should not find himself landed in Coventry, not only did the calendar of offences speak for itself, but sundry country gentlemen shook him by the hand, lamenting that railways and rowdyism had entirely altered races from what they used to be, that he was in the right, and what they had seen so recently proved that the only thing to be done was to withdraw from what respectable people could no longer keep within bounds. Such withdrawal will not prevent them, but it will hinder the demoralization from being so extensive as formerly, since no one of much character to lose will attend them.

  Mr. Bowater rejoiced in Miles's triumph. None of that family had been at these same races. They had all been much too anxious about Herbert not to view Ember Week in a very different light from that in which they had thought of it before.

  Lent had brought the junior curate back from Strawyers, not much more than a convalescent, but with his sister to look after him, and both Rector and senior anxious to spare him; he had gone on well till the family returned and resumed Jenny, when he was left to his own devices, namely, 'all work and no play.' He was as fixed as ever in his resolution of making this a penance year, and believed himself so entirety recovered as to be able to do without relaxations. Cricket, riding, dinners, and garden-parties alike he had given up, and divided his time entirely between church and parish work and study. Hard reading had never been congenial, and took a great deal out of him, and in fact, all his theological study had hitherto been little more than t
ask-work, into which he had never fully entered, whereas these subjects had now assumed such a force, depth, and importance, that he did in truth feel constrained to go to the very foundation, and work through everything again, moved and affected by them in every fibre of his soul, which vibrated now at what it had merely acquiesced in before. It was a phase that had come suddenly on him, when his mind was in full vigour of development, and his frame and nerves below par, and the effect could not but be severe. He was wrapped up in these great realities, and seemed to care for no talk, except discussing them with Julius or the senior curate, and often treated things of common life like the dream that they really are.

  Julius laid as little parish work on him as possible, only, indeed, what seemed actually beneficial by taking him out; but it may be feared, that in his present fervid state he was not nearly so winning to his young clients as when he was less 'terribly in earnest,' although the old women were perhaps more devoted to him, from the tender conviction 'that the poor dear young gentleman would not be here long.'